


you can learn to fly (on the way down)

by amosanguis



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Activist Charles, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Architect Erik, Erik falls in love with Charles after Charles dies, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, OTP: you look beautiful darling, Suicidal Thoughts, short scenes, title from a country song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Erik meets Charles, Charles is ripping open the door to his cab and shoving a mutant teen at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the way down...

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't focus on the Charles/Erik relationship - it's more about Erik helping Alex through Charles's death (the circumstances of which will remain vague because that's not part of this particular story).

-z-

 

The first time Erik meets Charles, Charles is ripping open the door to his cab and shoving a mutant teen at him.

“I’ll be right back,” he says to the boy, taking his head between his hands.  “I swear, I’ll be right back.”  Then he’s putting a hand to his temple and he looks at Erik and he says, “Don’t let anything happen to him.”  His hands are still at his temple when he turns to the taxi driver, yells, “ _Go!_ ”

And then he’s gone and the young mutant in Erik’s arms is screaming after him.

 

-

 

The second time Erik meets Charles, two days have passed.  Alex hasn’t eaten – has barely slept between his bouts of trying to escape and staring blankly at whatever wall he was in front of – and Erik has since realized that his surge of protectiveness for the boy was a result of telepathic influence.

(Alex never says why Charles left him with a stranger, he’d only opened his mouth to say that Charles would be back, that he wouldn’t leave him like this.  That Charles was powerful, so fucking powerful, and that he’d be okay.)

So when Charles knocks on Erik’s door – Erik opens his mouth to scream at him for diving into his head and for abandoning Alex.  But Charles is looking past him – right over Erik’s shoulder.

“There you are, Alex,” he says.  Then he looks up at Erik, adds, “Thank you.”

There’s blood coming out of his nose.

“What—” Erik doesn’t have time to finish the sentence before Charles is falling to his knees, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

An hour later, Charles is dead.

 

-z-

 

End chapter.


	2. ...you can learn to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik doesn’t know why Alex keeps coming back to his apartment even after they’ve buried Charles, but each time he shows up, Erik can never bring himself to turn the boy away.

-z-

 

Erik doesn’t know why Alex keeps coming back to his apartment even after they’ve buried Charles, but each time he shows up, Erik can never bring himself to turn the boy away.  Though the effects of Charles’s telepathy had died with him, Erik still vividly remembers the _need_ to protect Alex and he lets himself indulge in it.

“He must’ve chosen you to protect me for a reason,” Alex says the first time it happens; the boy’s eyes are empty – a look Erik’s seen in himself before.  And Erik knows then that he'll be caring for Alex for a long time to come.

“I don’t know why,” Erik says, stepping away from the door and letting Alex walk in.  “I’m not a very nice person.”

“None of us ever are,” Alex says, something like guilt in his voice.

Erik doesn’t know if he’s talking about a specific _us_ or about the population in general and decides against asking.

 

-

 

Whenever Alex shows up, Erik doesn’t drift from his nightly routine – he still cooks dinner, still watches the news (Charles’s death was all Lester Holt talked about for a week), still drafts new building designs – all the while letting Alex sit quietly on a recliner or hole himself away in one of Erik’s guest bedrooms.  He just lets Alex be.

(Sometimes, in the quiet of his apartment, Erik swears he hears, “Don’t let anything happen to him.”)

 

-x-

 

The press had tried to talk to him about Charles Xavier’s last hours once.

Thousands of dollars in cell phones and camera equipment were lost that day.

 

-x-

 

One night, Alex starts talking about Charles.

“I hated everyone and everything,” he says to Erik’s back as Erik pulls the lasagna out of the oven.  Erik glances over his shoulder, nods so that Alex knows he's listening, before he goes to pull down plates and glasses.  “Charles taught me that there was more than just things to hate – he showed me that there were things to love, too.

“He taught me how to control my powers,” Alex continues.  He huffs a laugh, “He did that by standing next to the dummy I was supposed to hit–.  He could have been killed – _I_ could have been the one to kill him instead of–,” Alex abruptly cuts himself off.  “I’ve never wanted to protect someone before.  I don’t know what to do.”

 _I’ve never wanted to protect someone before_ , hangs thick in the air.  Erik is facing Alex now, Alex who’s got his face in his hands and whose shoulders are shaking silently.

Erik knows the feeling, but he doesn’t say anything.

He just lets Alex cry.

 

-

 

Later that night, Erik finds three Ted Talks done by Charles Xavier – one on the x-gene, another on the education of underprivileged mutants, and a third on chess strategy.

Erik watches the first one five times.  Rewinding the video to watch Charles look out at the crowd and smirk as he talks about “groovy mutations” and how telepathy and shapeshifting were no different than blue eye color or red hair.

When he goes to sleep that night, he dreams about Charles and sharing a scotch with him over a chessboard.  (It’s a dream he has more than once, and more than once, it turns into a nightmare with Charles saying in Alex’s voice: “I’ve never wanted to protect someone before” and "I don't know what to do".)

 

-x-

 

On the one month anniversary of Charles’s death, Anderson Cooper does a special about the shockwaves felt – not just throughout the mutant community – but the world itself.

Not only was Charles one of the single most influential Mutant Rights Activists, he was also a man who had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies as his had been a family of old money.  But he never lost sight of his goal, never forgot about the everyday mutants who needed everyday help.

Mutants like Alex whose home situations were filled with only violence and anger.  The poison of which Charles had tried to save Alex from – just to fall to Alex’s father (just like Alex’s mother had before and just like a little brother had before her).

“While the circumstances surrounding Charles Xavier’s death are tragic,” Anderson is saying when Erik hears his front door open.  “He died—” Anderson swallows, tries to speak around his emotions.  “He died trying to make a difference.  Something he’s done for so many us; he will be missed.  And that’ll do it for us—”

Erik mutes the television as he stands.  He turns and looks closely at Alex – the boy’s eyes were sunken in, his skin sallow.  But there was something else off about him – an extra clump of metal just inside his coat.

“Alex,” Erik takes a step forward, keeps his voice calm.  “Why do you have a gun with you?”

“Raven says that if I kill myself, it’ll mean Charles died in vain,” Alex says.  “Do you think that’s true?”

“Yes,” Erik says, not hesitating.  He grips the gun with his powers and slowly pulls it out of Alex’s jacket.  Alex doesn’t try to fight him.  “And before you think about it – that point stands even if you try to get the cops or someone else to kill you.  Do you understand?”

Alex nods and moves past Erik – settling himself in his usual recliner.

 

-

 

More than one of Erik’s buildings can be seen in skylines the world over, so Erik’s apartment is expansive; his things neat and orderly, a mixture of chrome and black with splashes of purple – all of it metal.  Everything has a strict place.

But the more Alex comes over, the more of his things he brings with him and Erik begins finding hoodies on his sofa, an extra glass next to the sink, too small shoes next to the door.

Erik finds he doesn’t mind much. 

 

-

 

Erik bolts upright in bed, his chest heaving as sweat made his sheets cling to his skin.

In the cold dark, he hears: “Don’t let anything happen to him.”

 

-x-

 

Erik has only met Raven once: at the funeral.  She had hugged him and said, “Thank you for protecting Alex,” and they both pretended he’d had a choice as he said, “Yeah, of course.”

Alex doesn’t talk about the other kids he’d lived with at Charles’s school and Erik doesn’t ask.  Every once in a while, Alex’s phone will buzz and he’ll look at his message before looking at the clock and sighing.

Sometimes he leaves right away; sometimes he’ll send a message back before he settles deeper into his recliner.  On especially bad days, he stares down at his screen and does nothing at all.

(On days like that, Erik skips making them dinner and feeds him pizza and ice cream.)

 

-

 

“I don't remember my father,” Erik says to Alex, muting the news reporter telling them about the rates of mutant-on-mutant violence.  “My mother was killed in Germany during an anti-mutant riot by another mutant – someone who, it turned out, had incited the riot.”

“What did you do?” Alex asks, picking at the scabs on his knuckles.

“I tracked him down that night and I killed him,” Erik answers, not looking at Alex as he stares at his own hands but still not missing the way Alex’s head whips up.  “The authorities deemed it a crime of passion and let me go.  After I got my revenge, I was still so angry.”

“How do you get past that?” Alex asks after a moment.  Erik notices that his hands are shaking.

“It fades with time,” Erik says, looking at Alex. “If you let it, anyway.  Anger is something that will fester inside you, it'll drain you completely until you have nothing left.  What you need, Alex, is to find a new purpose.”

Alex looks away, his eyes wet and his jaw flexing. Once he gathers himself, he turns back to Erik and asks, “And how do I do that?  What did you find as your new purpose?”

“Architecture,” Erik answers easily. He summons a lump of metal from the coffee table, begins to mold it and shape it into various buildings he’s designed. “I decided to begin building, instead of tearing down.  I wish I could say I woke up one morning and decided that I was done with my anger – but the truth is that it was gradual.”  He motions to Alex’s hands, “I’ve buried my fists in the teeth of many people, woken up with blood on my face and vomit on my pillow.   _You_ have to decide when you’ve had enough.  No one else can do that for you.  I still have my bad days, of course - but, luckily, those are few and far between.”

He floats the metal piece – the design for his latest project – over to Alex, Alex takes the metal and turns it over in his hands.  Alex doesn't say anything, he just nods.  Erik knows the kid doesn't believe him, but that's okay.  Alex has time to come to terms with what’s happened.

Erik will make sure Alex has time.

 

-x-

 

An over-enthusiastic reporter follows Alex back to Erik’s apartment and Erik rushes into the living room to find Alex hyperventilating against the door.

“Someone’s chasing me,” Alex says between gasps.

Erik sees red.  

 

-

 

It takes three mutants and a teleporter to get Erik off of him.

(“Fuck off, Azazel,” Erik snarls, wrenching himself out of the other mutant’s grip.

Azazel purses his lips and lets Erik slam his door in Azazel’s face; not for the first time, Erik wishes that his colleague lived in a separate building.)

That night, Erik holds Alex as he shakes apart and it’s the first time they’ve touched since Charles had shoved Alex into Erik’s arms.

 

-x-

 

Charles Xavier has been dead for three months and Erik knows everything about the man.  Alex has started talking about him more – sometimes keeping Erik awake long into the night.

“You would’ve loved him,” Alex says, staring down into his empty beer bottle.  (Erik allowed the kid a few, but never let him cross that line.)

“Yeah,” Erik says, leaning his head back and looking up at the ceiling, picturing bright blue eyes and a beautiful smile talking excitedly about genetics and equality and _groovy mutations_.  “Yeah, I think I would have.”

 

-x-

 

Four then five then six months pass and Alex eventually stops leaving Erik’s apartment.

 

-

 

“You have to finish school,” Erik insists.

Alex pretends he doesn’t agree even as he fills out the paperwork to return to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.  Erik, meanwhile, signs his name on the last of the adoption papers.

He’s spent more time with Raven, met Moira – a caseworker for many of the children now living at Charles’s school – and they all agreed that Alex was a better fit _away_ from the campus and _with_ Erik.

 

-x-

 

In the weeks leading up to the one year anniversary of Charles’s death, Erik and Alex both ignore the hundreds of requests for interviews.

“I’m sorry you have to go through this,” Azazel says, looking at the stack of messages on Erik’s desk.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Erik says, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his face as he thought about Alex.

Azazel nods and heaves a sympathetic sigh – he doesn’t offer any of the weak platitudes Erik’s been hearing from other co-workers.

When the day finally comes, Erik keeps the television turned off and lets Alex get drunk.

 

-x-

 

It’s three years before Alex can muster up the courage to visit Charles’s grave.  He’s graduated from Charles’s school and is heading to college – looking to get a degree that’ll let him work alongside Erik at the architecture firm.

Erik goes with him and, putting his fingers to the simple headstone, says, “Don’t worry, Charles, I didn’t let anything happen to him.”

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
